In the meantime, no one is prepared to refuse outside money on grounds of efficiency. The politicians want it and are willing to let the dependency theorists wring their hands. One economist attributes Argentina’s low rate of savings to rapid population growth and high rates of immigration—to which I would add bad habits of conspicuous consumption.

There's a lot of debate about what this means. On the one hand, some people really wring their hands about these declines, and worry about what it means in the long term in terms of economic development, and having the resources to sustain older people as they age out of the labor force.

Trump is, of course, not the first president to face dissension in the ranks. Battles between Andrew Johnson and his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, grew so rancorous (hiềm khích, hay thù oán, đầy ác ý) that Johnson was ultimately impeached (though not convicted). Nor are Trump supporters the first to wring their hands about a deep-state (chính phủ trong bóng tối) conspiracy (thuyết âm mưu). Senator Joe McCarthy made his career peddling such theories.